Though New Zealand author Janet Frame (1924-2004) lived at a time of growing dissatisfaction with purely Western (i.e. European) cultural models, her work has so far never been examined from the vantage ... [more ▼]

Though New Zealand author Janet Frame (1924-2004) lived at a time of growing dissatisfaction with purely Western (i.e. European) cultural models, her work has so far never been examined from the vantage point of its indebtedness to Eastern epistemologies, and to Buddhism in particular. Even though it is possible to establish links between an author and a given system of thought (Heidegger’s for instance) without necessarily buttressing the comparison from a factual perspective, in this case, the author’s (auto-)biography, her fiction and letters, as well as the circles of Buddhists or Buddhist-sympathizers in which she evolved at a given time, all testify to the fact that a direct encounter between Janet Frame and Buddhism did occur. It can thus be affirmed that, just like W.B. Yeats, C.G. Jung, Heidegger and many others before her, one of the most striking personalities of the 20th century was drawn eastward. The relevance of this study to Janet Frame scholarship resides not only in its politicized angle of approach but also, more importantly, in the fresh light it sheds on entire segments of the Framean corpus which have tended to remain obdurately mysterious; this includes passages centering on e.g. the existence of a non-dual world, a reality un-harnessed by the partial categories of empirical thinking, on a character’s sudden embrace of a non-ego-like self, or on the jolting back of distracted individuals into an awareness of their physical reality in ‘this’ profane world. On the whole, and despite this apparent profusion of themes, my concern is to show that these obscure passages, as well as many other key moments in the narratives, all coalesce into a systematic deconstruction of empirical thinking and its point of anchorage in a discriminating kind of consciousness, both notions forming excellent points of entry into virtually all the texts produced by Frame. Through a careful mapping of the impact of discriminating habits of thought on the self’s place of being in the world and perception thereof, this work clarifies, or rather reconstructs, the narratological architecture of the studied texts – especially the novels – quite apart from the somewhat restrictive view, held in some circles of literary criticism, that they are mazes of random turnabouts and dead-ends where narrotological playfulness is valorized for its own sake. To provide just one example of how a study of Janet Frame via Buddhist thought facilitates the navigation of the author’s intricate novels, the idea in Buddhism that the artist is the bow that shoots the arrows, but then s/he is the target also, is a useful starting point for analyzing the seminal “Jan Godrey” (one of Frame’s best known short stories) in which a terrified author-figure finally allows her creature of words, described as an alien inside, to take full control of the speaking position. A contrario, Thora Pattern’s willingness in The Edge of the Alphabet to trap her creation within neat academic cages of words (as she calls them) spawns images of a hellish self-scape of containment which translate in an endless regression of framed frames since her attitude is paralleled by some of her own creatures of words and by the Christian God Himself – each at his or her level of being and of influence. But that is not all for, in a last turn of the screw, and pace the critics who diminish their roles in the narrative, Thora’s characters rebel against their creator, and they succeed in jamming her creative incarcerating mechanisms so that, by the end of the novel, the author-figure is no longer able to exist without the not-self. This dialectics of un/framing, in which a discriminating consciousness battles against the invading otherness of the non-dual, unharnessed world in all its manifestations, is one which typically informs the Framean corpus although, of course, the architecture of enactments it gives birth to is as varied as it is unpredictable. The idea, which Frame shares with Buddhism or with Nietzsche (who, incidentally, owes an intellectual debt to Buddhism), that most of the human existence is characterized by the “will to power,” i.e. by the drive to take full possession of one’s chosen place of being, is rather unflattering for her fellow human beings. In another sense, the author’s conception of our (in-)humanity as being made up of an accretion of egotistic habits that can be unlearned certainly explains why, in her oeuvre, a liberation from totalizing structures demands an encounter with the negative of place, of identity, of vision, of sound, of fullness, of shape, of well-worn mind-routes and, as we saw in the last chapter, with the negation of negation. Often, it takes no less than a rebellion of the supposedly harnessed reality to disorient a protagonist’s dualistic bearings or to jam an artist’s incarcerating mechanisms; and this, in part, accounts for the extreme physicality encoded in a fiction replete with moments of thumping or bashing – indeed with the promise of a cut finger. Still pondering the centrality of ‘unframed’ or ‘ego-less’ modes of being, each of the nine chapters that constitute this work aims at countering the oft-recurring claim that Frame’s oeuvre is studded with traces of a ‘beyond’ which no character can ever approach because ‘one cannot explore beyond’. By this definition, each of the questing selves that clutters the author’s haunting universe is condemned to failure beforehand, as it were, while concomitantly the Framean text itself is deemed to be bleak, defeatist, even nihilistic. Therefore, it is of the utmost significance that a Buddhist navigation of Frame’s texts should lead one to the conclusion that this unharnessed world which human beings are often unable to apprehend and embrace has always been right under their nose so that, between ‘this’ world of limited perceptions and ‘that’ world of the beyond, the boundary is as thick or as thin as the walls of a self-made conceptual prison. Indeed, whenever the aspect of the intellect that filters perceptions into mutually excluding categories fails to function, or is willingly jettisoned by a protagonist, s/he finds a place of subjective arrival in, and sees, this supposedly unknowable ‘beyond’. Thus, possibly against the grain of mainstream criticism, this study argues that Janet Frame constantly seeks ways through which the infinite and the Other can be approached, though not corrupted, by the perceiving self, and that she found in the Buddhist epistemology a pathway towards grasping such alterity. [less ▲]

In the wake of Richards Benton’s “Keats and Zen” (published in Philosophy East and West (1966)), this paper sets out to examine Janet Frame’s appropriation of Buddhist philosophy in Snowman, Snowman (1962 ... [more ▼]

In the wake of Richards Benton’s “Keats and Zen” (published in Philosophy East and West (1966)), this paper sets out to examine Janet Frame’s appropriation of Buddhist philosophy in Snowman, Snowman (1962). The novella’s allusions to a Buddhist-like epistemology, together with its subtle references to Scandinavian myths, however, have so far remained uncovered and are therefore best approached in the light of what has been called “the suppressed intertextuality in post-colonial writing”. The author’s intention in this paper is twofold: On the one hand, the author will suggest that post-colonial writers do not necessarily write against the Western canon and that maintaining the contrary amounts to vindicating the centrality of imperial texts in the contemporary literary scene—an endeavour which is hardly post-colonial. On the other hand, the author will go some way towards shifting eastward the core of Frame’s ontology by suggesting that her poetics is anchored not only in Western thinking, but also, perhaps more importantly so, in Eastern philosophy. The author’s primary impulse, however, in examining the interplay between canonical and peripheral intertextualities, is to illuminate in fundamental fashion the haunting beauty of the writer’s universe and the lyricism of Snowman, Snowman. [less ▲]

This essay examines Janet Frame’s “Jan Godfrey” with a view to demonstrating that its author-figure writes a story that is not a story as long as she hesitates to grant her (re-) created Other full access ... [more ▼]

This essay examines Janet Frame’s “Jan Godfrey” with a view to demonstrating that its author-figure writes a story that is not a story as long as she hesitates to grant her (re-) created Other full access to the speaking position she occupies. The idea explored in “Jan Godfrey,” that non-stories of avoidance are in fact narratives of ontological decimation will, then, be shown to tie in with Frame’s belief that true art occurs at the edge of non-being. [less ▲]

Through a close scrutiny of Janet Frame’s life and work, it is my intention in this essay to suggest that Buddhism proved an irresistible magnet for the author’s inquisitive spirit and that it played an ... [more ▼]

Through a close scrutiny of Janet Frame’s life and work, it is my intention in this essay to suggest that Buddhism proved an irresistible magnet for the author’s inquisitive spirit and that it played an important part in the shaping of her poetics. In effect, we shall see under what circumstances Frame’s encounter with the East took place and the extent to which notions such as the empirical mind or knowledge, the Great Death of the ego and the non-duality of the world permeate her oeuvre. The underlying concern in the second part of the essay shall be to buttress the claim that Frame constantly seeks ways through which the infinite and the other can be approached, but not corrupted, by the perceiving self, and that she found in the Buddhist epistemology a pathway towards such alterity. Thus, against the grain of mainstream criticism which maintains that one cannot explore “beyond,” a Buddhist navigation of Frame’s texts leads one to the surprising notion that the unharnessed world (or the infinite) which human beings are unable to embrace is, so to speak, right under their nose so that, between ‘this’ world of limited perceptions and ‘that’ world of the beyond, the boundary is as thick or as thin as the walls of a self-made conceptual prison. [less ▲]

in Ledent, Bénédicte; Tunca, Daria (Eds.) Caryl Phillips: Writing in the Key of Life (2012)

It is tempting to argue that, in A Distant Shore, Caryl Phillips entrusts a black gentleman with the mission to civilize uncouth English people. My contention, however, is to try and show the extent to ... [more ▼]

It is tempting to argue that, in A Distant Shore, Caryl Phillips entrusts a black gentleman with the mission to civilize uncouth English people. My contention, however, is to try and show the extent to which the text itself undermines the very idea that decency is a safeguard against savagery. If immigration indeed reveals English people’s inner darkness, it is also the case that the mask of good manners worn by Solomon or Dorothy gradually falls apart. In the end, dignified behaviour, once defined by Dorothy as essential to the distinction between human beings and animals, is exposed as a mere civilized pretence. [less ▲]

in Ariel : A Review of International English Literature (2012), 42(3),

Still largely unexplored, Janet Frame’s deep interest in eastern philosophies provides an illuminating point of entry into her sixth novel, A State of Siege. Questing for a New View, an amateur-painter ... [more ▼]

Still largely unexplored, Janet Frame’s deep interest in eastern philosophies provides an illuminating point of entry into her sixth novel, A State of Siege. Questing for a New View, an amateur-painter constantly harps back to the kind of fossilized aesthetic that draws a clear line between the perceiver and the perceived. However, step by step, trial after trial, the main protagonist is made to discard her cherished sense of apartness to embrace instead a state of utter non-distinction. In contrast to most commentators of the novel, my aim in this essay is to suggest that, in Frame as in Buddhism, nothingness of identity is not meant to translate into something – be it the solid shape of memory or any ontology beyond dissolution – for, unless the knower retains “nothing, not even a scrap of identity” from what s/he is trying to perceive, true knowledge, unadulterated memories and an unmediated apprehension of the real are seen to be altogether impossible. [less ▲]

This essay sets out to examine “Prizes” and “Royal Icing” by Janet Frame with a view to reconciling the Edenic chora formed by children with the state of selflessness that critics often define as a post ... [more ▼]

This essay sets out to examine “Prizes” and “Royal Icing” by Janet Frame with a view to reconciling the Edenic chora formed by children with the state of selflessness that critics often define as a post-mortem flux. We shall see, in the end, that Frame’s utopian condition of shared being is not to be located exclusively in ‘that’ world beyond disintegration, for it belongs to ‘this’ world of the living also. [less ▲]

This essay examines Janet Frame’s early short story “The Lagoon”, and argues that the story alludes to Maori experience, albeit tangentially, in a way which anticipates similar evocations in novels such ... [more ▼]

This essay examines Janet Frame’s early short story “The Lagoon”, and argues that the story alludes to Maori experience, albeit tangentially, in a way which anticipates similar evocations in novels such as A State of Siege and The Carpathians. A close reading shows that cultural imperialism in Frame runs parallel to, or is a side-effect of, interpersonal appropriations. These, in turn, seem to be rooted in human beings’ reluctance to accommodate otherness. Recurrently Janet Frame points to a model of cultural and interpersonal interaction which is detached from proprietorial forms of appropriation, but which entails nothing less than the dissolution of the ruling ego. Selfdissolution shall emerge in this reading as the key to a utopian state consisting of the total permeability between the self and the remainder of the world. In this state, transactions become reciprocal since the divisions between self and non-self no longer exist. [less ▲]

These days authors who use stereotypical characters such as the African woman warrior or the old field slave smoking his pipe and humming blues songs, would probably be considered as intellectually biased ... [more ▼]

These days authors who use stereotypical characters such as the African woman warrior or the old field slave smoking his pipe and humming blues songs, would probably be considered as intellectually biased or mentally colonized. Yet, it is also the case that, for some African American writers like Amiri Baraka, Charles Fuller and Lorraine Hansberry, these characters represent a link between Black people and their past or, to use Pierre Nora’s term, they are lieux de mémoire. This is why these authors oppose the more or less general attitude which consists in dismissing these clichéd-figures from the field of representation, for this would amount to erasing an entire the inception segment of African American history. Going against the trend of the time, these playwrights thus give a voice to those silenced by normative history and, to decolonize symbols which after all belong to the past of Black people, Baraka in The Slave (1964), Fuller in A Soldier’s Play (1981) and Hansberry in Les Blancs (1966) also invest these characters with a new significance. [less ▲]